The invention involves a golf club and in particular provides a golf club head for use on a fairway of a golf course or off the fairway in troublesome areas of the course.
Hitting a golf ball straighter and longer on a golf course is perhaps the most difficult challenge for every golfer. Since the origin of golf, inventors have attempted to invent golf clubs, irons or woods, which would hit the ball higher with more back spin and solve the problem of shanking, hooking, or slicing the ball. Unfortunately, most of the problems that underlie bad golf is the players ability to keep everything in position as the club travels through a swing plane. Hands turn, shoulders dip, legs stiffen, the head pops up, and the ball is headed for the woods. In order to overcome the many mistakes a golfer can make, golf clubs and golf heads have been bent and turned to compensate for the body movements during the swing.
Shank proof clubs such as those disclosed in the patents to Byrne U.S. Pat. No. 1,550,501, Koorland U.S. Pat. No. 3,539,184, and Saito U.S. Pat. No. 5,106,088 have failed commercially because the clubs took too much distance away from the flight of the ball in compensating for direction. Perhaps the most commercially successful shankproof iron is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,183,255 to Anthony J. Antonious. Antonious discloses a club head having an improved hosel construction wherein the hosel is positioed behind the ball striking face adjacent the heel. Moreover, the centerline of the hosel intersects with the extended plane of the ball striking face at a point proximate the club head's center of gravity and above the lower quadrant of the club head. Although some shank proof clubs have had commercial success, there remains a need for a club, despite a player's movements, which will provide direct flight for a ball with plenty of distance, and improve shots from any lie.